The Spy I Loved (13 page)

She
charged them a pro-rated daily fee for two days. Lindsey was glad
to see the back of them, by the time they strutted out, thoroughly
indignant. Their mouths were going in some unknown tongue and no
doubt being damned rude. Or, they might just be trying to decide
where to go for lunch. It was hard to tell going by tone alone in a
foreign language.

It was
her impression that they weren’t having a good time and had just
decided to chuck it. It happened, of course, and it was best not to
be too indignant. The place had been bedlam, with a few parties
checking out early on the holiday Monday. These folks had the
farthest to drive, or were perhaps hoping to make connecting
flights from a larger centre. Hopeful that things would slow down,
her mind ran over the guest list.

A young
couple entered, the bell ringing and she looked up.

“
Hello. How can I help you?”

“
Ah, yeah, I hope we’re in luck.”

Lindsey
smiled at them.

“
We’re looking for a cabin. Ah. We’re not too sure how long we
might want to stay. Is that all right?” The young fellow looked at
his much taller and quite a bit heavier female
companion.

She
nodded.

“
Ja.” Something Dutch or German there, thought
Lindsey.

“
Well, uh, sure. We have people leaving later on, but we have
one I could show you right now. I don’t know what kind of shape it
was left in—the cleaning girls haven’t been in there
yet.”

“
That sounds good. We can hang around for a while. It’s better
than going on and trying the next place.”

“
Absolutely.”

She’d seen it before, the overly-optimistic ones who never
thought to make a reservation. Brain-dead was what they called
them. The funny thing was, most of them didn’t
seem
stupid.

They
paid two hundred and fifty a night good-naturedly enough, taking
the one Borz and Lom had just vacated. They began well enough by
paying for three days in advance, cold hard cash. It was a bit
unusual, but cash was still legal tender last time she
heard.

In the
meantime, they would dump their luggage in the front hall. The
girls could clean around it. Mister and Mrs. Bernstein were easy
enough to get along with.

They’d
had breakfast, bacon and eggs in town. They could buy a couple of
coffees right there.

They had
their gear all set to go, and they just couldn’t wait to get out on
the river. All they needed were some bottles of juice and a few
snacks.

Those
intense blue eyes were unwavering.

It was
like Mister Bernstein was trying to convince her of
something.

***

Liam
pulled up to the shoreline where a portage trail led up into a tall
forest of pines and black spruce. A pink and grey outcropping of
bald granite loomed above on a high angle. The rendezvous was right
on the dot, which was eight-thirty-four a.m. (plus ten or twelve
seconds) and at the appointed place. There was a margin of error of
three metres or less—nineteen times out of twenty; a useless piece
of information except for the statisticians of the
world.

“
Hullo.”

“
Good morning.”

Ian Spencer held the boat as Liam got out. Ian was another
lone wolf. He was dressed casually for the outdoors, dark colours
predominating. He wore a ball cap with a
Labatt’s Blue
patch on the
front.

“
So. You think you’ve found the damned thing?” Spencer snorted
softly. “Or part of it. I guess that’s why they’re paying you the
big bucks, eh?”

Ian was
as Canadian as apple pie and Blue Jays baseball. He was lucky to be
getting five hundred a day plus expenses. Holding dual citizenship,
he’d worked in Britain for many years in what was euphemistically
called private security. During the real IRA years, some of those
people were as tough and skilled at counter-terrorism and
counter-intelligence as anyone else.

Ian’s
resume was extensive.

Liam
liked him well enough and he seemed tough, capable and
confident.

“
I’ve got a major part of her. Almost a certainty.” His
morning briefing had said (essentially) that it looked good
according to analysis and why not bring it up.

The
radioactivity count indicated part of the reactor. Brief exposure
would give an increased chance of cancer later in life. The suit
would only partially shield him. Getting it out of the mud would
take some work.

It was
the price one paid for an interesting life.

Ian went
back into the bushes and dragged the first of two long duffel bags
out onto the bank. Liam stowed the first one in the bottom of his
boat, well out of sight as Spencer went back for the other
one.

He came
out of the woods, gasping and cursing.

“
Jesus. I sure hope this is worth it to you.” He cleared his
throat and held out a hand, palm up. “What, no tip?”

Liam just
nodded and helped him get it aboard. Ian gave a sour grin and bent
to it.

Kimball
looked up.

“
I’ve asked you to stop calling me that.” The tone was
absent.

Ian shook
his head.

There was
another boat, a mile ahead of them upriver, and Liam wanted to get
this done. There was a bend in the river and some overhanging
branches. With the powerful motors on some of the bass boats in
particular, they could be on them in a minute, a minute and a half
at best.

Ian
stepped back as Liam dropped the second bag and shoved it with a
good kick into the centerline. He had one foot in still in the
water. He hopped into the boat and Ian shoved the prow off the
beach as he reached for the steering wheel and starter button.
After some experience, he was now using the biggest boat in The
Pines’ small fleet.

Ian had
undergone a long hike, portaging back and forth, to bring in all of
the equipment. He was looking at another long walk back to his Land
Rover. Shorthanded as they were, his partner, who had departed at
the crack of dawn on a mysterious errand that took him nowhere but
definitely dragged a long tail, was now back home watching the
watchers.

Hopefully
Liam could pull this off, while the opposition was presumably in
disarray.

Ian began
walking up the steep trail with barely a look back, almost enjoying
himself now that the hard work was done. Sooner or later it would
all have to come out again, of course.

There
were places he needed to be. The sound of Kimball’s motor droned
and faded. He took one last look back, seeing nothing but a patch
of blue, sparkling waves and a sea of treetops.

Almost
anything could happen next. If he didn’t pay attention, he’d walk
smack-dab into a mother black bear with a couple of cubs, or, what
was almost worse, a big mess of poison ivy.

He’d had
it once as a Scout. It was an experience he would never forget.
People got it on their hands and sooner or later they had to pee or
wipe their backsides.

Blackflies, mosquitoes and other biting insects buzzed and
whirred and clouded his vision. He couldn’t bat them away fast
enough. Once off the lake, or off the trail or away from your camp,
sheltered from the sun and the breeze, a person just couldn’t get
enough bug spray sometimes. With ankle length boots, high socks,
and sticking to the trails, he’d been lucky to avoid major slashes
from picker-bushes. There were poison sumac and poison oak to
contend with, although he’d never been able to tell the difference.
Sumacs and oaks all looked the same to him. Poison ivy was one of
those variable plants. The leaves were not always glossy green and
heart-shaped. You never quite knew what you were looking at. With
the temperature near thirty Celsius, and with the humidity
climbing, he’d failed to bring enough water. His canteen was almost
dry.

The trail
just went up and up and then it went up again some more.

His
vehicle was a good thirty-five hundred metres from the water. He’d
practically busted a nut getting Liam’s gear to him. His lower
legs, back and shoulders just ached. When he finally rounded the
last corner, he paled to see what someone had done to his vehicle.
He stopped dead, jaw open. Every light, signal, and sheet of glass
had been smashed. Every panel had been kicked in and dented,
scratched, scraped and gouged. The mirrors had been kicked off as
well. The license plate was missing from the front end.

“
Shit.” Reaching for his phone, he checked his
watch.

Stepping
back into the shade, Ian took a quick look up at the sun, wondering
how far Liam might have gotten in the interval.

The
movement saved his life. A rotten branch, blue-grey with lichens,
exploded inches from his left ear. Someone was shooting at him with
a silenced weapon.

Birds
twitted and cheeped as he froze in shock for a split
second.

Smack.

Jesus, I’m lucky to be alive—

With no
idea of where the shots were coming from, he flung himself into the
nearest underbrush, clawing at his own little gun.

Smack-smack-smack
…no
more.

He had
time to wonder if the phone was smashed.

He was
still alive and unhit.

He was
really
sweating, now.

It did
put the mosquitoes in perspective, though. The nearest help was an
hour away. To talk on the phone was to give away his position. To
try and text a message was to lose that all-important
focus.

Whoever
was out there couldn’t see him at this exact moment. The shots had
come from off to the right, and the trail, the logging road, led
straight ahead.

It looked
like a ticklish tactical picture, with the number of enemy
combatants unknown.

His next
move was obvious enough. Ian drew his weapon and began wriggling
towards whoever was out there.

The key
was stealth and self-control.

The thing
was to see the other guy first.

One shot, one kill, asshole.

And you missed.

Chapter Nine

Liam
Kimball cruised the lake for half a day. He was seeing and being
seen, rather than avoiding other boats or people and camps along
the shore. The paravanes were in the water and he was spin-casting
here and there. As long as he looked like he knew what he was
doing, no one really cared. Cottagers, with their boats, docks and
floating bathing platforms, were much more prominent nearer to
town, but they were strung out all over the place. He took pains to
wave, to engage in eye contact and cheerful greetings. With land so
cheap, and the wilderness right there, private camps were
everywhere. When the satellite came down, in February of the
previous year, all of this land had been searched. For the most
part, the owners were still down south. Their summer houses were
boarded up, and not all of them were small shacks, either. Some of
them were substantial houses and even mansions in their own right.
The word ‘camp’ didn’t always convey an accurate picture of what
was actually there.

Quite a number of smaller fragments of EMERALD had been
recovered. It was estimated that up to ninety percent of the
satellite would be recoverable. The possibility existed that
something might have been missed, something of interest. A
talkative landowner, finding such a part of the satellite, might
have set off a chain of talk that could have led to some
interesting places. This was a remote possibility. Since a
satellite coming down couldn’t be hidden from the public in a
western-style democracy, the public had been informed—that most
innocuous of channels, the Weather Network had done it up
brown,
and then the
matter was quickly dropped. There was a brief flurry of interest
again when a lucky amateur was in the right place at the right time
and photographs of EMERALD burning up in the stratosphere went
viral on the internet. Having forgotten all about it, the person
had uploaded them five weeks later. Those pictures were still
posted in perpetuity, on a thousand different websites and
blogs.

The bags
in the scuppers wouldn’t come to any harm. They were mostly out of
sight, as he stayed twenty or thirty metres off shore. After a
while he relaxed, even pulling in a six-pound whitefish which would
make for a tasty dinner. Liam went to the trouble of picking a tiny
islet. Psychologically it would be difficult for another boatload
of people to land. This was where he scaled, fileted, battered and
fried in bacon grease seven or eight skinny perch he’d taken over
the course of the morning. This site was well away from where he
planned to be working later on. One last chore involved sweeping
the boat for tracking devices, using a larger and more powerful
tool than just his phone. She checked out clean and he had to take
it on faith that the good guys had better technology than the bad
guys. They’d be watching that trout all day long. Only when it laid
up for the night or whatever fish did at bedtime, would the
watchers begin to wonder.